2019 brings good news to SooToday, bad news to steel mill creditors (4 photos)

As 2018 wound down, SooToday asked our staff to recall their most memorable stories of the past year.

For David Helwig, two local news stories towered head and shoulders over all others.

Helwig updates us here on the status of Sault Ste. Marie steelmaking, and on Village Media/SooToday's own rapid growth and plans for the coming year.

It's official: Essar Algoma trade creditors get nothing

In an invited speech last summer, I cautioned members of the Rotary Club of Sault Ste. Marie that nothing in the hundreds of thousands of pages of court documents I'd studied in Essar Steel Algoma's insolvency files gave me any hope that local trade creditors would see a thin dime of the more than $25 million owed them.

On Nov. 30, a consortium of secured creditors closed a deal to buy the Sault's steel mill.

The deal included provisions for city property taxes and lenders who kept Algoma afloat since it applied for insolvency protection on Nov. 9, 2015.

But court documents filed a week before Christmas confirm that there's nothing left for 125 Sault companies still owed for work done before the steelmaker filed for Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) protection.

Under the purchase agreement, responsibility for those debts lies with the old company, known until very recently as Essar Steel Algoma.

Ernst & Young Inc., the court-appointed monitor, says the old company now has no employees, operations or assets, so there's nothing left to pay trade debts incurred prior to Nov. 9, 2015.

After a dozen years as Sault Ste. Marie's biggest mover and shaker, Essar Steel Algoma Inc. is no more, having quietly changed its name last month.

There are now two other names you need to know in the world of Sault steelmaking.

The first is Algoma Steel Inc. – the new company formed to buy the Sault's steel mill and other assets of the insolvent Essar Steel Algoma Inc.

Algoma Steel Inc. is now free and clear of all CCAA restrictions, a dynamic new player in Canadian steel that's spending $300 million to retool its Sault facilities.

The Algoma Steel name is well known in these parts.

It was used by the Sault steelmaker from 1901 until 2008, one year after the Sault mill was acquired by India-based Essar Global Ltd.

The second name to know is one you've never heard before: Old Steelco Inc.

That's the awkward new moniker officially adopted without fanfare last month by the company formerly known as Essar Steel Algoma.

Old Steelco's protection from creditors was recently extended until June 30, 2019 to allow an orderly wrapping-up of its affairs.

New downtown home for SooToday and Village Media

When Dick Peplow brought me to the Sault in 2002 to reposition SooToday as a hyperlocal news service, my first office consisted of less than one square foot on the third floor of 123 March St.

That tiny footprint was actually available on good days only.

In fact, I shared a single desk with two IT specialists from a sister company.

Each day, I begged for enough space of my own to store a few eight-by-11-inch sheets of paper.

But the desk served as a work bench for my colleagues.

Each night, the tech wizards returned with malfunctioning central processing units and dropped them directly on top of my little paper stash.

From there, I graduated to a more spacious but equally humble third-storey attic at 647 Queen St. E., then back to Soo Centre to a succession of small offices on the third and fifth floors.

Throughout its history, SooToday has never wavered from our commitment to the city's downtown.

Most recently, SooToday and parent company Village Media have operated from the second floor of Paul Mall at 642 Queen St. E.

After a banner year in 2017, the past year was even more impressive.

We launched new journalistic initiatives in Orillia, Collingwood, Bradford, Newmarket and Thorold.

Working with strategic partners, we launched additional startups in Kitchener, Ottawa, Prince George and Kamloops.

In a single year, we almost doubled in size, becoming a national chain stretching from Halifax to British Columbia.

Bursting at the seams at Paul Mall, we were overdue for a new headquarters.

That will happen in 2019.

Village Media/SooToday will move this year to a 4,600-square-foot, two-storey building of our own at 298 Queen St. E.

Originally built by the Royal Bank in 1967 at the bustling Queen-Bruce intersection, the handsome edifice is currently occupied by Credit Counselling Service of Sault Ste. Marie & District.

I no longer oversee day-to-day operations, but derive great satisfaction from seeing longtime Villagers like Jeff Elgie, Mike Purvis, Donna Hopper, Carol Martin, Derek Turner, Brad Coccimiglio and others continuing to honour our original vision of truth, independence and community service.